Side Effects

Our reporting focuses on the impacts of environment, policy and economic conditions on Americans' health. Please contact us if you are interested in republishing these stories for free. Learn more about joining our network here.

The scene of a heroin overdose is familiar to Michelle Hodge, a patrol officer on the Near Westside of Indianapolis: someone lying blue and unconscious on the floor, a very faint heartbeat, long pauses between breaths, and the family in a panic, begging her help. Until last spring, all she could do when she arrived was monitor the pulse and wait for an ambulance to arrive.

Every month, Cynthia Edwards breathes through a machine that can tell if she’s been smoking. If the machine registers a low enough number, she takes home a $25 voucher to help her pay for diapers for her five-month old son, Justus.

New numbers released by the federal government reveal a continuing upward trend in drug overdose deaths, with 43,982 deaths in 2013 from both prescription medications and illegal drugs combined. Deaths involving prescription opioids increased 1 percent from 2012, while heroin-related deaths rose a staggering 39 percent. However, almost twice as many people died from prescription opioid overdoses (16,235) as from heroin (8,257).

Since March of 2014, Ebola has claimed the lives of more than 8,600 people and sickened more than 21,000. Fortunately, according to the latest World Health Organization data, new transmissions are on the decline in Guniea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

In the year just past the world saw tragic epidemics (and we don't just mean Ebola), millions of Americans gaining health insurance, a silly campaign for a serious cause, groundbreaking, and sometimes weird, advances in medicine (poop pills, anyone?), and more. Here's a look back at the top health stories of 2014.